A day to remember
by RavenBelours
Summary: Emma had intended to take her girlfriend out for an unforgettable, romantic date. Needless to say, just like everything else in Emma's life, the date wasn't exactly going as planned. Where was a fairy godmother when she needed one? She grumbled while she checked Regina's head for bleeding, "How was I supposed to know you were so bad at ice skating?"


**This story was written for swanqueengranger fo the SQ Valentines Day fic exchange on tumblr. The prompt was Botched Proposal.**  
**Thanks a lot to btvsobsessed623 and giftofamber for beta-ing.**  
**I hope you enjoy it.**  
**Oh and reviews would be magic :)**

Emma had intended to take her girlfriend out for an unforgettable, romantic date. Needless to say, just like everything else in Emma's life, the date wasn't exactly going as planned. Where was a fairy godmother when she needed one? She grumbled while she checked Regina's head for bleeding, "How was I supposed to know you were so bad at ice skating?"

"I told you, I never did it before."

"Yeah. But usually people do better their first time on skates."

"Well thank you!" Regina zipped her boot and looked up at Emma who hadn't even started to untie her ice skates.

"I'm sorry**,**" the blonde said, and the look on her face made Regina's anger melt away and caused her to simply sigh.

"I wanted for us to have a nice day, and I thought maybe this would be fun. I'm really sorry you fell," Emma said, taking Regina's hands in her own and locked eyes with her. "You sure you are okay?"

Slowly, Regina nodded, "Yes, and I appreciate your idea, but maybe we could just go and have lunch somewhere and skip to the next part of your plans?"

Relief washed over Emma's face before she squeezed her lover's hands and then turned to untie her ice skates, "Sure."

Regina leaned back against the locker room's wall and closed her eyes for a moment. Actually**,** she didn't feel quite as okay as she had told Emma. She could still feel the pulsating pain from where she had hit her head on the side fence when she lost balance and fell. The brunette was sure she would get a full-blown headache later on, but she decided to not care, at least for now.

Emma had woken her this morning with breakfast in bed and then announced excitedly, since Henry was on a school trip, the both of them would spend the day together. With her non-existent ice-skating skills, she had already ruined part of Emma's plans, so she didn't want to complain about a headache.

She opened her eyes again to see Emma getting up from the bench and holding a hand out to her.

"Grilled chicken salad at Granny's?" the blonde asked with a smile, and Regina nodded, returning the smile, and taking the offered hand.

They returned the skates and headed to Emma's yellow bug, which Regina could not bring herself to like even after two years together. Still, this was Emma's attempt to plan a perfect day so Regina just let it go when they took the bug instead of her Mercedes.

The ride back to town was short and in comfortable silence. The radio played some 80's love song, and as Regina glanced sideways at Emma, who was concentrating on the street, she was so very thankful to be with this woman. She had spent decades mourning Daniel, mourning the loss of her true love. For decades, everything she ever loved had been taken away from her; people used and betrayed her, and even the son she raised had, at one point, decided to turn against her, but then things had finally changed.

Falling in love with Emma Swan certainly never crossed her mind, but then again, it certainly never crossed Emma's either, and yet it happened. Somehow, one day, it just happened. She couldn't even remember how it did, really, but one day she just felt that she couldn't live without Emma Swan anymore, and, for the first time in forever, her feelings had been returned.

"Regina."

Emma's soft voice and a hand on her thigh made her look up from the dashboard to realize they were already parked on Main Street.

"What were you thinking about?" Emma asked, having noticed that Regina had been lost in thoughts.

"Us," Regina answered honestly and turned to better look at Emma, "and about how thankful I am to be with you."

Emma smiled and took her hand up to cup Regina's cheek, "I love you." She felt butterflies in her stomach when she saw the effect her words still had on the other woman.

"I love you, too," Regina replied, and their lips met for a kiss.

When Emma finally pulled away, there was a hint of disappointment on Regina's face, but the blonde was fast to say, "I'm starving, and I still have something planned for later today. So let's get in."

Regina felt relieved and nodded, smiling.

The women got out of the car and walked over to enter Granny's. It was a weekday and the main lunch time was already over, so there were only a few tables occupied. They chose a table in the back, sat down, and gave their orders to Ruby.

Waiting for their food, Emma reached over the table to once again take Regina's hand and began running her thumb over it. Regina kept her gaze on their joined hands and enjoyed the feeling. They remained silent for a while before she finally asked, "So what did I do to deserve this special day?"

"This is the first day in forever that we haven't had our teenaged son around to be embarrassed by us showing affection."

"Seriously?" Regina's eyebrows hit her hairline, but Emma squeezed her hand and smiled at her.

"You deserve it because I love you. You deserve every day to be special—I just can't manage to make every day like this because we both have jobs to do and a son to raise."

Regina looked at the blonde seeming to decide whether or not to believe her.

"Besides," Emma laughed, "'Special' didn't work out quite as well as I imagined with the ice-skating, so maybe it's a good thing that not every day can be like this."

That made Regina laugh as well, and she replied, nodding her head, "Probably."

Their food came, and Emma immediately started on her grilled cheese while Regina began to slowly eat from her salad. Though it was delicious**,** she wasn't really that hungry, partially because her headache was getting worse by the second and partially because of the nausea she started feeling. Taking a deep breath, she set her fork down to take a sip of her water. She felt Emma's observing gaze on her and hurried to even out her facial expression to not show her discomfort to the blonde.

When she took up her fork again, Emma was still watching her closely, and Regina could sense the question on the other woman's lips. To avoid that, she quickly asked, "So what more do you have planned for later today?"

She smiled and witnessed how Emma's expression slowly changed from worry back to excitement over today's plans.

"Not telling," the blonde answered grinning.

"Really?"

"Yep. It's going to be a surprise, and I promise that it won't be as risky as the ice-skating was."

Regina nodded, taking another bite of her salad and almost choking on it when a flash of pain shot through her head. Alarmed, she looked up at Emma who luckily had turned her attention back to her food. Relieved that her girlfriend hadn't seen her short fit of pain, Regina returned to slowly taking bites of her salad. Every now and then, she could feel Emma's gaze on her, but she decided to simply remain quiet, using her food as a reason for not talking.

Despite her best efforts, of course Emma would notice that something was wrong. Finishing the rest of her grilled cheese and wiping her mouth and hands clean, the blonde asked the question Regina had tried to avoid, "Are you alright?"

She took a moment to set down her fork, deciding that half of the salad would be all she could eat right now, and then looked up at Emma, whose eyes were studying her carefully.

"I'm fine," she answered reassuringly, "just thinking about what your plans for later could be."

She smiled, and, though this headache really started to eat her alive**,** she was curious about Emma's surprise.

Long ago, she had learned to fear surprises; they were almost never positive. So, she tried to avoid all of them, mostly by always taking control over a situation—or people. Ever since Emma came into her life, or more specifically, in her heart, all that had changed. In the first few months of their relationship, Regina began to love surprises. They got caught up on all the dates they had missed during the arguments over their son, breaking curses, fighting destructive shadows from the past, and joining forces with former enemies to go on a quest to save their kidnapped son from another realm.

Probably having similar thoughts, Emma seemed to be appeased for now and turned her gaze from Regina to the plate in front of her.

"So are you finished?" she asked and, after Regina nodded, got up from her place. "Then I'll pay and we can go to the next point on the list."

Watching Emma walk over to the counter to pay and also chat with Ruby**,** Regina took her hands up to gently massage her temples. Her head was killing her, and she didn't have any Aspirin with her and wouldn't get the chance to get some until the evening. Sighing, she carefully ran her fingers over the spot where she hit her head and almost gasped loudly at the sudden pain.

That would definitely become a huge bump. When she saw Emma coming back to her, she quickly took her hands from her head and instead reached for her glass to finish the rest of her water.

"Ready to go?" Emma asked, and Regina nodded, getting up and taking her jacket from Emma's hands that had offered it to her.

The fresh air outside the diner alleviated the pain in the brunette's head, and she took deep breaths while following her girlfriend to the yellow bug.

Once Emma had started the engine, and they were on the road, Regina, for the moment forgetting about her head, began to feel excited. She looked out of the window as they followed Main Street further and further out of town and tried to figure out where they would be going.

The only place, apart from a few private properties, that far out of town would be…

"The stables!" She turned around to look at Emma who had a big grin on her face, so her guess had to be right.

"What are we going to do?" Regina asked, her excitement only rising at the thought of being around horses again. She loved them and never really stopped, even after all those years in Storybrooke, but she just never found the time to ride. Not before the curse broke and certainly not after.

"Wait until we get there." Emma replied, shortly glancing over before returning her focus to the street.

A few minutes later she parked the car in the yard and killed the engine, turning to look at Regina.

"I know you love horses," she began, "and I know you never find the time to actually come here. So I called the owner and asked if we could borrow one of the horses today to go for a long walk through the woods."

Regina couldn't believe that Emma really came up with this, and, because words failed to express her emotions, she simply leaned forward to press a kiss on the blonde's lips.

"But," she said when they parted, "did you say we're taking the horse for a **walk**?"

Emma shrugged and gave Regina a lop-sided grin, "Well, I can't ride and also… Marius was so kind to not charge me for this, but we have to take his dog with us. Ithas been after the stable cats, and he doesn't want the kittens to be eaten."

Regina couldn't help but laugh, not only at the story, but at Emma's expression, which showed so much inexperience with animals, but also the determination to do this, because Regina, liked horses.

"Thank you," she said simply and took one of Emma's hands in her own when they noticed Marius walking up to them.

"Hello, Sheriff, Madam Mayor. I guess you want to get going, right? Follow me."

The women nodded and followed Marius into the stable where he stopped in front of a beautiful skewbald horse that immediately came to the door and nosed the man's jacket. He began scratching its mane and turned his gaze to Emma and Regina.

"This is Kerrie," he explained, "she's a very friendly mare and won't give you any trouble. I know you have experience with horses, so I'll just say, enjoy your walk. Just come to the farmstead when you leave, so you can take Jethro, my dog, with you and also come by when you're back, okay?"

"Sure. Thanks again for letting us doing this." Emma said when Marius was already on his way to the yard again.

"You're welcome!" he called over his shoulder.

Regina deeply inhaled the distinctive scent that every stable had, and it brought up the happiest of her childhood memories. She stepped forward to the horse and gently held out a hand to let the mare snuffle her before gently stroking her nose. She saw Emma stepping up next to her carefully taking up a hand to stroke the animal as well. The brunette smiled at Emma's cautious contact with the mare, and, when Emma caught her look, the blonde grinned.

"So this is as far as my planning went. You're the expert on horses so I just assumed you would know what to do."

Regina reached for Emma's hand again and gave it a short squeeze.

"I do", she replied and turned to take the bridle from the nail in the wall and put it over the mare's head before opening the door and leading her outside where she tied the lead rope onto a metal ring. Quickly looking around, she found a box with brushes that had the name 'Kerrie' on it and took out two of them, handing one to Emma, who stood within a meter's distance of the horse.

"Brush her with this," Regina instructed, and Emma carefully took a few steps forward to do as asked.

"Why do we have to do this? I mean, we're not gonna ride her."

"It's also wellness for her," Regina smiled and walked over to Kerrie's other side to brush the dappled coat. As simple as this task was, she found herself enjoying it. It brought up good memories, and the knowledge that Emma had arranged this for her, despite her own lack of familiarity with horses, just added to that. The headache that had been so very painful just 20 minutes ago had faded into an uncomfortable, but not too painful pulsing in the back of her head as they brushed the horse.

Ten minutes later, Regina decided they were ready to go. Emma generously let her take the lead rope and quickly walked over to take the dog from Marius. She returned a few minutes later with a black Labrador on the leash, and the two women made their way from the yard into the nearby forest. They walked next to each other, and, after a few minutes silence, Emma took Regina's hand. Briefly smiling at each other, they continued to follow the dirt road.

"Do you like it?" Emma asked eventually, looking at Regina, who gave her a questioning glance.

"I mean, with just walking. I know I could have gotten you a riding lesson, but I thought it maybe would be nice to do something together."

Regina stopped and squeezed Emma's hand, stepping closer to her lover.

"I love it. I love this whole day, Emma. Nobody has ever cared to organize something similar for me before. I'd like almost anything you'd plan as long as we would do it together."

"So you even liked the ice-skating?"

Regina laughed, "Yeah. I even liked the ice-skating, at least the part before falling."

Emma laughed as well, and Regina could feel her breath on her own lips before both women leaned in for a gentle kiss that was only broken when Regina stumbled two steps backwards to the side of the road where Kerrie decided the grass looked very delicious.

They both laughed and took each other's hand again to continue their way. Emma took off Jethro's leash to cast a few sticks for him to fetch. Every now and then, they stopped to let Kerrie have some grass at the side of the road, and it seemed that even the animals enjoyed their little walk.

Talking about everything and nothing and also just walking in comfortable silence for long moments, Regina felt completely safe and happy—if only it weren't for the slowly recurring headache. For the last hour or so, she had almost forgotten about the pain, but in the last few minutes, it had increased severely. They were just having another short break and had sat down on a stump, watching the animals, when Regina seriously had to fight to hold her composure and not show any signs of discomfort to Emma.

This moment, the both of them outside in the forest, leaning against each other, hands intertwined, with the content animals in front of them, was just too perfect to be ruined by something as mundane as a headache. When Emma stood up, Regina followed and was already taking a step back towards the dirt road, when Emma's hand in hers stopped her.

She turned to look at the blonde when another sharp pain flashed through her head and almost took her sight. After the moment had passed, she decided she had to tell Emma now, regardless of the fact that she would ruin their perfect day. She felt like she was about to faint, but—when she looked at Emma, she found the blonde on her knee in front of her. Was she…? Her heart accelerated as she realized what Emma was about to do, what this whole day had been about.

"Regina," the blonde started, squeezing their still joined hands, "I love you with all my heart, and the last years have been the best of my life. I can't imagine ever being without you or Henry again. So, will you marry me, Regina?"

She took out a small box that probably contained a ring, but Regina couldn't really tell because her vision was blurred, and she felt dizzy.

"Emma… I…" she tried to answer, but, with another sharp pain, she felt darkness quickly approaching her and taking over.

...

"Regina…Regina can you hear me?"

"Regina, please wake up!"

There were at least two different voices calling her name, and, confused by why one of those was a male voice that didn't belong to Henry, she tried to open her eyes and immediately squeezed them shut again when bright lights hurt her retinas.

"She's waking up!"

Emma! The brunette suddenly recognized the painfully worried sounding voice and all the memories came rushing back: the ice-skating, her hitting her head, lunch, the stables and their walk through the forest—and Emma asking her to marry her.

She tried again to open her eyes, this time more slowly to adjust them to the room's brightness.

"Emma?" she asked, voice hoarse, although she already knew the blonde would be there.

"I'm here, Regina," the immediate answer came from her right side together with a hand squeezing her own.

She turned her head slightly, her eyes finally having adjusted to the light, to look at Emma. The blonde looked exhausted, and she could also see traces of mascara around her reddened eyes. She had been crying and even now a few tears ran over her cheeks.

"Hey…" Regina said, taking her free hand, which she found covered with different wires, up to Emma's cheeks in an attempt to brush away the tears "Don't cry."

Emma gave a sound somewhere between a sob and a chuckle as she brushed over her face herself before embracing Regina's hand with both of hers.

"I was so worried about you," she said.

Regina didn't know what to reply because, actually, she didn't really know what had happened.

"Regina, you passed out when you were in the forest. You're at the hospital now."

She turned a little to be able to look at the man on the left side of the bed…Whale, as she had now recognized his voice.

"Emma called an ambulance. You were out for 20 minutes. Emma also told us that you hit your head this morning?"

"I fell when we were ice-skating," Regina confirmed.

"Good, so you remember. You got yourself a pretty bad concussion. We scanned your head and luckily there are no signs of internal bleeding, but you need to stay at least the next two nights," Whale explained, before asking, "How are you feeling right now? Any headache, dizziness, nausea?"

"No, I'm just feeling exhausted."

"That's normal. You got some pain meds. When the meds wear off, just call for more. You don't have to be in pain while you're recovering. I'll leave you alone now, but I'm always around, if you need me. And I will check in on you every hour to check your pupils' responses for any sign of delayed internal bleeding."

He smiled at both women before leaving the private room and closing the doors behind him.

Regina looked at Emma again, who already looked a little bit calmer than a few minutes ago.

"What happened?" Regina asked, even though she had just been told, because she wanted to hear it from Emma.

"We... I… we were having a break, and then you... passed out. I tried to wake you up, but you wouldn't react, so I called for an ambulance," she swallowed before a helpless smile came to her lips. "I even ordered a paramedic to stay with the animals until Marius would come for them, so I could ride with the ambulance."

Regina returned the smile and reached over to lay her left hand above Emma's, still clenching her right, "I didn't want to scare you. I'm sorry."

"No! It's not your fault. I took you ice-skating. It's my fault. You already had a headache when we were at Granny's, didn't you?" Emma looked guilty, and Regina wanted to reach out to brush this emotion from her lover's face.

"It's not your fault, Emma," she assured, squeezing the blonde's hands between her own, "**I** fell and yes, I did, but I didn't want to ruin our day. You had everything planned, and I enjoyed it, and I didn't want to say something because I didn't want the day to be over. It's not your fault."

Even though she felt tired because of the pain meds, she locked eyes with Emma and gazed into these beautiful emeralds, trying to convince the blonde to not blame herself anymore.

After a few moments, Emma averted her gaze, and Regina could tell that she still blamed herself.

If they had one thing they had to work on in their relationship, it was both of their tendencies to always take the blame for everything bad that happened not matter how much of an accident it was.

Thinking of a way to distract her lover from the guilt she was feeling, Regina smiled widely before saying, "To answer your question— Yes. Yes I do."

Emma looked at her with questioning eyes, "Which quest… Wait, you did hear that?!"

The blonde's eyes widened in surprise, and Regina laughed at the sight.

"I did. I did hear your proposal, and I'm sorry I ruined the moment, but I was about to say yes before I passed out, and I'm saying yes now."

Remembering the moment, even with the pain and dizziness, her heart started to speed up, and, when the monitor beside her bed actually caught this change and the beeping increased, Regina blushed a deep red. But then again, how often in your life do you get asked to marry your true love? A little heart racing was definitely allowed, she decided.

Emma watched Regina very closely, jumping at the sound of the heart monitor's increased beeping, but feeling a smile tugging at her lips when she saw Regina blushing. Slowly her expression changed from anxiety to positive excitement.

"You really want to marry me?" she asked. The brunette had already answered that question, but Emma just felt the need to really be sure.

When she came up with the thought, she feared that Regina wouldn't like the idea. After all, she had already been married once, and it was not a happy marriage. Emma would have understood if after all of that, her view on marriage wouldn't be the best.

But right now, Regina just smiled at her, exhausted, but absolutely honest, "Yes I do, Emma. I love you."

Emma felt her heart warming, and, for a moment, just stared at her lover, who even after all she had been through today, looked astonishingly beautiful.

Even though the moment wasn't quite how any of them would have expected it to be, it somehow was magical. Slowly, Emma leaned over to place a kiss on Regina's lips before she took out the small satin covered box again. She opened it, took out the ring, and carefully slipped it on Regina's finger.

The brunette lifted her hand up to look at the slender ring.

"It's nothing special," Emma started to apologize, but Regina stopped her by quickly taking her hand and shaking her head slightly.

"It's beautiful. It's us."

They locked eyes, and Emma nodded eventually, "It is."

They looked at each other for a few more moments, taking in the other one's features and feeling the pleasant waves of safety and family, before Emma leaned over her fiancée to kiss her.

When they finally parted, Regina moved to lie more on the left of the hospital bed and patted the now empty space next to her.

Emma smiled and laid down stripping her shoes from her feet. As soon as Emma had made herself comfortable, Regina curled up in her arms, resting her head on Emma's shoulder, closing her eyes.

"Not quite how I imagined our first night as an engaged couple," Regina mumbled against the skin of Emma's neck and could feel the blonde chuckle, before a hand started to caress her back, and she felt a kiss placed on her forehead.

"As long as we're together it's gonna be a good night," Emma replied.

Regina smiled but already felt herself gliding towards sleep; after all, she was exhausted, injured, and drugged with pain meds.

"Henry will be back in two days," she whispered.

"Yes."

"I miss him."

"We'll call him tomorrow."

"Hmm…"

Emma smiled as she heard Regina's breath evening out and continued to caress her girlfriend's, no—fiancée's back and closed her eyes until soon she also fell asleep, dreaming of a future with her perfect little family.


End file.
